We’ve all heard it before: It’s the thought that counts. Yeah right. I, for one, prefer not to give gifts just for the sake of giving. I actually do want to the person at the receiving end to like my gift. And during the holidays, this desire...
I’m a peanut sauce convert. There I said it. It’s true, I never liked peanut sauce. It probably has to do with the fact that my mom always served peanut sauce with boiled vegetables, i.e. the popular Indonesian dish gado- gado. C’mon, do boiled vegetables sound appetizing...
When I was gathering recipes for The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook, I spent a day with Cathy Chun and her sister, Carol, cooking, chatting and sharing. Shrimp with black bean sauce and taro cake were on the menu. While both were delicious, only the shrimp dish made...
Doesn’t this vegetable look familiar? You can find it at just about every corner grocery store and you probably know it by another name: baby bok choy. In fact, its proper name is Shanghai bok choy or green stem bok choy. True bok choy has snow-white...
My (baby's) heart beats for sardines Pregnancy does strange things to you. Let me count the ways: 1. Baby brain (If you thought morning-after hangovers were bad … and you have it ALL the time). 2. Multiple aches and pains (Everywhere! Even in places you didn’t know existed). 3....
Luffa squash lying elegantly on my dining table Our taste buds are the most effective memory keepers of all. Let me explain. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my favorite Hmong farmer, Moua, about the assortment of Asian vegetables he grows and sells. He drew...
Last Sunday, I conducted my very first cooking class/workshop in San Francisco. It was organized by Slow Food SF and held at La Cocina, an incubator kitchen for low income minority women. The series was aptly titled “Grandmother Workshops” and the goal was to teach people...
Chicken wings were one of my favorite childhood snacks: baked, grilled, or fried, it didn’t matter. I’d gnaw on the wing tips until all the flavor and what little meat and skin were on ‘em was sucked off! So when Monica Bhide asked me to cook her...
When I was a little girl, I hated mung bean sprouts, which we call “tauge” in Indonesian or "dou ya" (literally "bean sprout") in Mandarin. At the market, they’re often labeled simply bean sprouts. It had nothing to do with their bland flavor or the weird crunchy...
Paneer cut into cubes Everyone has their day dreams. Mine begins at dawn with me stirring a vat of creamy white milk. Sleep still heavy on my eyelids, my face is flushed from the delicate tendrils of warmth rising from the freshly-milked liquid which not so long ago...
